


Striratna

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Baahubali fics [4]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Female-Centric, Forgiveness, Gen, Introspection, Oneshot, retrospection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 23:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14365773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: On nights when Devasena does not think of her husband or her son, she thinks of her mother-in-law. They are both Rajmatas of Mahishmati now, she realizes with an odd pang.Oneshot.





	Striratna

**Author's Note:**

> Title means “best of women” in Sanskrit.

Devasena had thought, briefly, that Bhalla could never truly lay a finger on someone. Like a coward, he must work his machinations through someone else, but put the sword into his hands and he will falter.

That notion dies when she sees him nock an arrow, aim it, and shoot-- directly into his mother’s turned back.

The sight sickens her, for reasons entirely separate from seeing her infant son topple into the river.

She despises ( _despised_ ) the woman, and yet she retches whenever the sight crosses her mind.

* * *

On nights when she does not think of her husband or her son, she thinks of her mother-in-law. The woman she once thought of as a blind, stubborn tyrant who could not see past her own idealism. They are both Rajmatas of Mahishmati now, she realizes with an odd pang.

 _You are shackled by the very idealism that has brought you thus far_ she had once snapped at Sivagami.

Devasena glances down at the cuffs binding her wrists and laughs, long and low and guttural.

* * *

Her body is more resilient than even she expected it to be. Widowhood, maternal separation, imprisonment, and exposure to the elements, and still her breasts produce milk. They twinge painfully and leak, staining her already stained rags, the faint sweet smell mixing with the stench of dirt. It reminds her that Mahendra is somewhere far, far away, hopefully being fed by breasts that are not hers, held in arms that are not hers, soothed with a voice that is not hers.

She is grateful to this shadowy woman, whomever she is. But the heartache of envy is more acute than she ever could have imagined, and it is an agony she knows will never fade.

At least Bhalla never notices her breastmilk when he comes to torment her. What is less easy to hide are her courses, which miraculously return a few months after her milk dries up. She tears rags into clumps and under cover of darkness, takes care of her cycles. But at times, blood still trickles down her legs, and the cramps are achingly strong. She tries to make him believe it is from her beatings, but still he catches on, somehow, and sniggers. She keeps her head bowed, but inside she refuses to feel mortified. She is a woman, and she bleeds monthly. It mean she is healthy and strong despite everything. What need has she of shame?

Her paradoxical triumph lasts only a year or so; then her courses stop coming, and her body begins to shrink unto itself.

Milk and blood, she thinks wildly. The hallmarks of motherhood. Sivagami once said that milk would be equal to blood, and look how that vow ended. Drona wanted to be able to afford for his son to drink milk, and ended up soaking Kurukshetra in blood for that. What began in milk ended in blood for Ashwatthama.

For Amarendra.

(She did the right thing in the end. Mahendra lives thanks to Sivagami. In the end, she did the right thing.)

* * *

There are times when she envies the older woman. For being with Baahu, for not being alive as Devasena is now, especially when the sun is blistering hot, or the wind is piercingly cold, and Devasena takes ill. And then she wonders why she envies a woman whose legacy was one son’s blood on her hands and the other son’s arrow in her back. And then Devasena considers her _own_ legacy, and must laugh again.

One day, she will visit the woman’s grave, wherever it is. When she holds Mahendra in her arms again, she will tell him all about his brave, infuriatingly cheerful, impossibly good father, but she will also make sure he knows of the woman who raised that man, who saved Mahendra and ensured Mahishmati was waiting for him when he returned.

When she sees Sivagami once more, she will nod to her, raise her when she falls at Devasena’s feet, and embrace her.

**Author's Note:**

> The story of Drona and how he could not afford to feed his son Ashwatthama milk is taken from the Mahabharata. Drona’s struggle to forge a better life for himself would eventually become part of the larger epic that was the Kaurava-Pandava war.


End file.
